Canon EOS 400D Digital SLR Camera (incl. EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 Lens Kit)
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 | Product Details: View further technical information at Amazon Release Date: 10 September 2006 Manufacturer: Canon Model No: 1237B009AA Rating:   Sales Rank: 4135 | | Look for similar products by category: | | Customers who bought this item also bought:
| | Customer Reviews: Superb starter digital SLR package (22 October 2008)I decided to get back into photography with an SLR, and did quite a lot of research. This lead me to buy this camera and lens (as well as a 70-300 zoom). This camera is a superb entry level camera, with preset picture style types such as portrait, landscape, sports etc. and a fully auto setting, so as easy to use as a point and shoot. For the more professional photographers amongst you, there are the manual setting options where you can adjust the ISO, aperture etc. and a fully manual option. The basic 18-55 lens will be fine when you are getting used to the camera, however the lenses will be the first thing you upgrade if you fall in love with photography! I recommend the USM IS range of lenses as reasonable priced good quality upgrades. Let down by the lens (03 September 2008)I'll start by clarifying why I gave this only 3 stars, the lens is such a huge let down. The Canon 400D in itself is a fantastic camera. The picture quality is excellent and the 10.1mp is more than enough for the amateur photographer to create extremely decent photos that can be blown up to poster size and put on the wall. The speed of the camera is fairly decent, it shoots at 3 frames per second. Bear in mind this is an amateur camera it's very fast. The 2.5" screen is a good size to preview images and is very clear. I find the camera is very easy to use if you are new to the world of Digital SLR and yet still has enough complex features to be able to customize your photography. The 400D is compatible with Canon EF and EF-S lenses and EX-series flash. All in all, I would give this camera alone 5 stars. The lens on the other hand is appauling. The sharpness of image is very poor, especially when stopped down, and the Bokah (clarity of deliberatly out of focus parts of the shot) is extremely poor. The lens is very noisy (which never bothered me personally) and the manual focus is almost impossible to use. This is due to the fact the focus is done by turning the barrel of the lens which is so loose it hardly feels like its attached to anything. The end of the lens turns making a polarizing filter hard to use. The lens however is light weight due to it being a plastic build, in turn I cant see it withstanding much abuse. If you were to buy this camera I would suggest getting the body only (without the lens) and pay a little more to get the Canon EF-S 18-55mm 3.5-5.6 IS Lens. It costs a little over £100, doesnt have USM, but is worth it for the extra photo quality. If you have a little more than that, for around £250 look at the Canon EF 28-135mm 3.5-5.6 IS USM. This lens has a huge focal range and USM (Ultra Sonic Motion [ie. really quiet). In conclusion, buy this kit if you are really strapped for budget. If you can afford to upgrade the lens you will be very suprised by the vast improvement over the kit lens. n.b. on amazon this kit is now cheaper than the 400d body only package. So it might be worth buying this after all, but please please get another lens if you do! Excellent - but you need to work to get the best from it (24 August 2008)Consistently topping the recommendation lists for entry level Digital SLR cameras the 400D is a fine piece of equipment. There are more than enough reviews here which to extol the cameras virtues and facilities; it is certainly an easy to use camera. However while is will work well enough on fully automatic mode, I have found that in order to get the very best out if it you have to do a little bit of work yourself. Different circumstances will warrant the camera operator selecting specific preferences, be it shutter speed or aperture, and perhaps allowing the camera automatic function to provide the rest, in order to produce the desired results. But perhaps the most important area where the user needs to be watchful is with the focusing. Especially with close-up work I now no longer use the cameras automatic focusing but rely on the eye and the viewfinder to ensure accurate focusing. The difference is considerable; in fact I was ready to up-grade the lens until I carried out a few experiments and proved what the standard 18-55mm lens could do, and it proved to be quite up to the job. Knowing what the standard lens can doo means I can now look much more specifically for additional lenses. It also is worth remembering that pressing the shutter release is only half the photographer's job. Back in the days of traditional film stock the rest (or even the most) was done in the dark-room. So some decent photo editing software is just as important; Adobe Photoshop is of course very good but my own preference is for Corel Photopaint. Excellent value for money, I am very happy with my 400D. amazing camera! (22 August 2008)I have just started getting into digital photography and I can say that this camera is perfect not only for a beginner like myself but for professionals also. An ex-canon fan (17 August 2008)Only thirteen months after buying the camera, and it failed (Error 99). Look on the internet for Error 99. Choose Pentax instead. |
